One oil and gas production technique for offshore wells utilizes subsea Christmas trees. The tree locates on top of the wellhead housing and contains valves for controlling the production. The tree also normally will have a choke and may have various monitors and flow measuring devices. The tree has a production outlet that typically connects to another subsea component, such as a manifold, that may be some distance away, such as 50 meters to several kilometers. A flowline jumper connects the subsea tree to the other component.
The flowline jumpers between the various components on the sea floor are typically rigid steel pipes that are laid horizontally on the sea floor. Prior to installation of the jumpers, the distances between the components are measured or calculated. Then pipes are fabricated to the desired length and provided with couplings on the ends for connecting between two components.
If the measurements are not precisely made or the components moved from originally planned locations, new jumpers may need to be fabricated. The distance and the orientation between the various subsea components must be known in advance before the flowline jumpers can be fabricated because the lengths will be critical. Also, after installation, if one of the components needs to be retrieved or moved, it is a time-consuming task to disconnect the flowline jumper from the component.